Establishing a world-class biophysics platform that will enable and accelerate the discovery of leads for launching drug-discovery programs and biotech start-ups

Challenge: The most critical step in discovering future medications is the identification of the initial hit compounds (“leads”) that interact with target proteins and which have the desired properties. The search for and validation of potential lead compounds is a major challenge for launching drug discovery programs as this process requires highly specialized expertise, expensive equipment and infrastructure, and vast chemical resources. Moreover, classical screening assays are often contaminated with false-positives and false-negatives, and available experimental techniques are notoriously unreliable at properly characterizing weak hits at the high concentrations required.
Solution: Here, we propose to develop cross-technology strategies that take advantage of a thorough exploration of the advantages and limitations of a broad range of biophysics tools to reveal typical and unusual natural phenomena of ligand and protein targets.
Expected Impact: This will build the foundation for establishing a world-class biophysics platform that will enable and accelerate the discovery of leads for launching new drug discovery programs and biotech start-ups. Moreover, this project will train multiple HQP that will contribute to and have a significant impact on Québec’s biotechnology industry.

Faculty Supervisor:

Steven LaPlante;Salim Timo Islam

Student:

Partner:

NMX Research and Solutions Inc

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Université du Québec : Institut national de la recherche scientifique

Program: